Flemmie Kittrell and the Preschool Experiment

Alexis Pedrick joins Katie Hafner to bring you an episode from The Lost Women of Science Initiative, a non-profit educational organization dedicated to telling the forgotten or untold stories of remarkable female scientists and their groundbreaking work through history. 

The episode, which originally aired in October 2023, is about Flemmie Kittrell, the first Black woman to earn a PhD in Home Economics. In the early 1960s, Flemmie decided to see what would happen if you gave poor kids a boost early in life, in the form of a really great preschool. Every day for two years, parents would get free childcare, and their kids would get comprehensive care for body and mind—with plenty of nutritious food, fun activities, and hugs. What kind of difference would that make? And would it matter later on?

Credits

Host: Alexis Pedrick
Executive Producer: Mariel Carr
Producer: Rigoberto Hernandez
Associate Producer: Sarah Kaplan
Music by Blue Dot Sessions

Resource List

Flemmie Kittrell audio interviews, Black Women Oral History Project Interviews, 1976–1981, the Harvard Radcliffe Institute’s Schlesinger Library Institute

Kittrell, Flemmie, "The Negro Family as a Health Agency," The Journal of Negro Education, Vol. 18, No. 3, The Health Status and Health, 1949

Baure, Lauren, "Does Head Start Work?," The Brookings Institution, 2019

Horrocks, Allison, Good Will Ambassador with a Cookbook: Flemmie Kittrell and the International Politics of Home Economics, University of Connecticut, 2016

First report on Howard Preschool Experiment: Prelude to School: An Evaluation of an Inner-City Preschool Program, Children's Bureau (DREW), Washington, D.C. Social and Rehabilitation Service, 1968 ‍

Talbot, Margaret, " Did Home Economics Empower Women?," The New Yorker, 2021

Zigler, Edward, and Muenchow, Susan, Head Start: The Inside Story Of America's Most Successful Education Experiment, 1994.